


Distant and Faint

by Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Quantum Abyss (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays/pseuds/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays
Summary: There's no map for navigating the abyss.
Relationships: Keith & Krolia (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	Distant and Faint

They haven’t been in the quantum abyss long when Keith nearly gets himself killed in the most mundane way possible. They’re picking their way down a crevasse to get to the stream at the bottom when the ground slips out from under his foot. He pitches forward and has just enough time to curl up and get his arms over his head before he’s tumbling down the escarpment. His shoulder bounces hard off an outcropping, and he slides down a slope of scree before slamming into the ground with an impact that knocks the wind out of him. He stares dazedly into the distance for a couple of seconds, remembering how to breathe. Gradually, the world trickles back in, and he becomes aware of the sound of Krolia’s rapid, skidding descent behind him.

“-eith? Answer me!”

“I’m all right,” he wheezes and cautiously sits up. He can already feel the bruising on his legs and shoulders and his hands are scraped raw, but everything still works. Slowly, he gets to his feet. He turns around in time to see Krolia drop the last couple of meters to land in front of him. Her hand goes to his shoulder and she crouches slightly to look him over, the skin around her eyes tight and pale. At last, she lets out an explosive breath, and he goes stiff as he’s abruptly pulled forward. Her left arm goes around his shoulders and her right hand comes up and closes, quickly and carefully, around the back of his head and neck. It lasts barely a second and then she retreats to a cautious, impersonal distance, her face unreadable.

They both stand there awkwardly for a minute. They don’t really know each other. They’re not friends. They’re just strangers whose pasts intersect. 

“I’m all right,” he finds himself saying again anyways.

Something shifts in Krolia’s expression, some of the stiffness dissolving. “Good,” she says.

* * *

A few phoebs later, they’ve built themselves a place in the abyss and he dreams of Naxzela.

It’s always the same dream. His hands clamped on the sticks and the engines screaming under him as the shield gets closer, filling up the view brighter and brighter until he slams into wakefulness.

He come to with a gasp, his heart pounding. Slowly, the darkness resolves to the familiar contours of the shelter. There’s the sound of movement from the other bedroll and he can see the flat shine of Krolia’s eyes in the gloom.

“Keith?”

“I’m awake,” he gets out.

There’s quiet for a minute, and then he hears her get up. Her shadow crouches at their little firepit, and the embers redden as she stirs them to a glow. He watches silently for a while, and then he gets up to join her, feeding the fire kindling bit by bit until the flames burn steady and hungry. They sit there side by side for a long time. She doesn’t ask him anything and he’s grateful for it. The fire’s a low, constant crackle in the small space, and he closes his eyes against the heat on his face. Slowly, his breaths even out. There’s a stir of air over the back of his neck, and he cracks an eye in time to see Krolia hesitate and withdraw her hand. She catches his gaze and lets out a breath as her hand drops to her side. “Go to sleep. I’ll keep the fire going.”

He watches her for a moment, a solid dark shape against the fire’s glow. “All right.”

The line of her shoulders relaxes, and he closes his eyes again to the sound of her raking the embers.

* * *

Krolia has her own nightmares. He startles awake one night to the sound of a choked-off curse. He blinks the sleep away and rolls over to face the other side of the shelter. He can make out the shape of her, seated upright on the bedroll, elbows resting on her knees.

“Krolia?”

There’s a beat of quiet, and she shifts. “Keith. Go back to sleep.”

He watches her, but she stays there, breathing deliberately while she looks out into the dark. After a minute, he gets up and begins coaxing the fire back to life. There is a stir of movement from her side, and then she makes a long, drawn-out _haaah_ of galra amusement and joins him. Together, they build the fire into a blaze. When it’s done, they sit and watch it, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. When he steals a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, she’s looking at him with a slight, melancholy smile. The hand closest to him curls and half-lifts, before it slackens and she turns back to the fire. He remembers suddenly that embrace after the fall he’d taken, and that breath of air over the back of his neck.

He lifts his hand to cup the base of his skull. “What does this mean?”

Something raw and nameless shocks across Krolia’s face, but then she lets out a breath and shakes herself and it’s buried. “ _Iimi_ ,” she says after a moment, and demonstrates against the back of her own head. “It’s affectionate. For family. Maybe for very close friends.”

“Oh.” Something twists inside him, some old tangle of grief and loss and loneliness.

Krolia watches him, and sighs. “I used to think,” she says, “that if I saw you again, I’d know what to do. What to say to you.”

It startles half a rough laugh out of him. “Yeah. Me too.” As a kid, he’d had dozens of fantasies of what he’d say to his mother if she ever came back.

She gives another low _haaah_ , and something eases between them. At least neither of them know what they’re doing.

He stares into the fire for a few more seconds, and then leans to the side so his shoulder bumps hers. Krolia goes still, and then, gradually, her weight leans back until they’re braced against each other. Her hand comes up, and she pauses, watching him. He stays where he is. After a moment, he feels the clasp of her hand over the back of his neck, her palm a warm, solid weight against his skin.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Gentle smooches_ , prompted by [sunshinehime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinehime).


End file.
